Public Defender Offices In Crisis, And Defendants Are Paying The Price - When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Quit

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Published on Wednesday, 03 June 2009

Written by Deborah Hastings, AP

Poor people like her constitute about 80 percent of criminal defendants. And in bad economic times, crime rates increase, legal researchers say, adding more weight to the groaning system.

In troubled Miami-Dade County, the public defenders office has lost 12 percent of its budget in the last 18 months, while the average felony caseload per lawyer increased from 367 to 500 over the past three years, officials said. The maximum number of cases an attorney should carry is 200, according to Florida's public defender association. And that's a conservative number -- the Constitution Project study suggested 100 cases per lawyer is too many.

"It's gotten very desperate down there," said Maureen Dimino, who spent four years as a court-appointed Miami lawyer before quitting last year. Now she works as an indigent defense expert with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Washington, D.C.

"The burnout rate is extremely high," she said. "That's why I got out."

After the rigors of law school and passing the bar, and with starting salaries averaging $40,000 per year, why would anyone want to get in?

Dimino laughs. "I started at $37,000," she said. "It was possibly the most rewarding time of my life. There really is something to be said for trying to do the right thing. You're crazy, but you love it."

In her new job, Dimino hears plenty about the deteriorating public defense system. "Every state I've talked to has been hemorrhaging. They're being asked to take more and more cuts."

In April, New York became the first city to cap the number of criminal cases juggled by public defenders. Tucked inside the state budget bill, the law requires that standards be established by 2010, and phased in over the next four years as funding permits.

But like other legislation, it has been criticized for not going far enough.

"A major metropolitan area in our country is finally willing to enforce caseload standards," says Carroll. "But if you look at it, it says at some future date some standard will be enforced, if there's money to do it.

"How can you say someone in New York City deserves a reputable lawyer, but if you're in Buffalo, sorry? It's really not doing anything to help the indigent defense crisis," he said.

Topping a list of 22 recommendations at the end of the Constitution Project's massive analysis are calls for organizing indigent defense at the state level with "adequate" funding, and establishing an independent oversight board to create attorney standards, and remove lawyers who don't meet them.

Project members say they will meet with members of Congress, the U.S. Attorney's office and state and local leaders, to promote their recommendations. But whether those officials can come up with "adequate" funds is an entirely different matter.

Still another sign of the dysfunctional public defender system is its lack of basic, centralized records. States and counties employ about 12,500 full-time defenders, said Carroll. But no one knows how many private attorneys work under contract.

Often, those contracts are awarded at a fixed rate, meaning no matter how many extra hours a case requires, reimbursement stays the same. Which is another reason plea bargains have become so popular, lawyers say. If there's no money to mount a defense, what's the use of going to trial?

"It turns justice into a sham," said attorney Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, who started her legal career as public defender in the South Bronx.

In some areas, attorneys say overhauling the system could actually save government money.

The Michigan Appellate Defender Office, for example, saved nearly $3.7 million in prison costs by correcting four years worth of sentencing errors.

"You don't have to just throw money at it," said Carroll. "We could just allow law enforcement more leeway in deciding whether to issue a citation or arrest someone."

Hurrell-Harring, of course, wishes she had been given a ticket instead of six months in prison. But then she is asked what possessed her to smuggle a controlled substance into a state prison?

"I asked myself the same question," she says, matter-of-factly. "My husband asked me. It was for his own purposes. I should have put my foot down and said no. But let's be honest, we all did things for men that we shouldn't have done. I bet it's happened to you."

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